Things are very different now. Budgets slashed. Different buyers. Longer sales cycles. Less repeat business.

But many things are also exactly the same. Companies, after all, are hardly sat there doing – and spending – nothing.

In this article, Britain’s Sales Trainer of the Year Andy Bounds shows how to convince these companies to spend more of their money with you.

No matter what you sell … no matter who you sell to … there are three things you need, to sell more:

To have the right mindset

To meet with the right people

To say the right things to them

If any one is missing, you’re less likely to succeed.

Wrong mindset? No sale. Say the wrong things? No sale. Say the right things to the wrong person? No sale.

You need all three. Especially when the current climate is making everyone raise their game. And here’s how to master them.

1. Get the right mindset

See yourself as an ‘AFTERs-causer’, not a ‘seller of stuff’, and your sales will rocket.

By AFTERs, I mean what customers are left with AFTER you’ve worked with them. Customers always want their AFTERs, not your products/services. You know this to be true. After all, you don’t buy a newspaper because you want a newspaper. You want information.

Buying toothpaste? You want clean teeth.

Glasses? Better vision.

I.T.? Improved efficiencies.

AFTERs-focussed sales conversations lead to more sales. They flow better. Both you and the customer enjoy them more.

And you handle objections more effectively. For instance, a company recently told me: “Our training budget has been cut to nothing”. My response? “But you’re not buying training. You’re buying the increased sales you’ll win”. Our conversation then naturally flowed to where we could access budget.

We won the work. They have already won £millions of new sales. All because of my AFTERs-mindset.

So, find your AFTERs. Ask your customers what value you’ve brought them AFTER buying from you. Discuss with your colleagues what AFTERs you provide. See yourself as an ‘AFTERs-causer, and your clients will too. And when they do that, they buy more.

2. See the right people

A ‘right person’ is someone who can sign cheques and make decisions.

A ‘right person’ is therefore not necessarily your closest contact at the client. Nor, since the current climate is leading to different sign-off limits, is it necessarily the same ‘right person’ as last year.

To find how best to get in front of a ‘right person’,simply grade each possible marketing activity – e.g. cold calling, networking, hosting seminars etc - on a Good Grief Scale (‘Good’ – how likely that activity is to work [1: low; 10: high]; ‘Grief’ – how unpleasant that activity is for you [1: no grief 10: grief-laden, due to cost, time, hassle, your hatred of it etc])

So, for my business, an abridged Good Grief Scale might be:

Good

Grief

Cold Calling

2

10

Networking

5

5

Host seminars

10

8

Referrals

9

1

Existing clients

10

1

So, I hate cold calling. Networking works better, but still has a grief of ‘5’ due to the time investment. We always win business from seminars, but they are hard to organise, hence high grief. Referrals and existing clients work well and are easy to do.